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This article aims to explore whether a firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) transparency alleviates a firm's cash holdings.

CSR transparency ratings encompass both the quantity and the quality of CSR practices, as validated by Bloomberg. While based upon firm-specific disclosure, transparency ratings impound additional information gathered independently by Bloomberg and thus bridge the gap between CSR disclosure and CSR performance. The authors use ordinary least squares estimators, and the authors concentrate on a panel of S&P 500 index companies over the period of 2012–2018 to examine the effect of CSR transparency on corporate cash holdings.

The authors document that a higher level of CSR transparency induces a lower level of corporate cash holdings. Additional results imply that this negative relationship is more pronounced for firms suffering from high information asymmetry, with low financial reporting quality and for those with weak governance. Further analyses document that higher CSR transparency can help firms to enjoy lower cost of debt and to be less financially constrained, enabling high CSR transparent firms to obtain external financing more easily and at a lower cost, thus lowering the need to hoard cash. Ultimately, the study findings suggest that CSR transparency increases the market value relevance of an additional dollar in cash holdings.

The authors contribute to both research streams of CSR and corporate cash holdings as they provide evidence about the influence of CSR transparency as a monitoring and insurance-like mechanism on corporate cash holdings.

This study examines the long-term link between fair valuation uncertainty and discounts/premia in closed-end funds. This study argues that, in exploring the close-end funds puzzle, prior research generally omits to consider the uncertainty surrounding the measurement of funds' financial disclosure, as reflected in the fair value hierarchy, when investment specialty differs across funds.

Regressions were employed to explore how the fair value hierarchy affects closed-end funds' discounts/premia when investment specialty differs. The authors also examine the effects pre- and post-2012 to explore if that relationship changes due to the additional disclosure requirements enacted at the end of 2011.

The authors find that the three levels of the fair value hierarchy have effects that vary according to a fund's specialty. For equity specialized funds, Level 3 significantly increases discounts and decreases premia, suggesting the impact of valuation uncertainty that underlies Level 3 estimates; this relationship disappears (decreases in severity) for premia (discount) experiencing funds post-2012. In contrast, Level 1 and Level 2 do not have any significant effect on discounts or premia except that post-2012, Level 2 begins to display discount decreasing effects. For bond specialized funds, no significant association was noted between premia and any of the fair value levels except that post-2012, Level 3 begins to display premium increasing effects. However, results are different for discounts. The authors note that Level 1 valuations significantly increase discounts, but only post-2012; Level 2 valuations significantly decrease discounts (pre- and post-2012), consistent with such estimates incorporating unique and relevant information; and Level 3 valuations do not have a significant effect on discounts.

The results of this study revisit prior evidence and indicate that results about the effects of fair value measurement and the closed-end funds' puzzle are sensitive to the period length being considered and the investment specialty of the fund. The authors also note that additional disclosure regarding Level 3 valuation inputs decreases market concern for valuation uncertainty and increases the liquidity benefits of investing in Level 3 carrying funds.

The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to introduce two determinants of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure transparency, namely, audit quality and public media exposure; and second, to investigate the impact of ESG transparency on firm-level investment efficiency.

Ordinary least square (OLS) regressions are applied to explore the relationship between the two variables of interest (audit quality and public media exposure) and ESG transparency on a sample of publicly listed Canadian firms during the period 2008 to 2017. Then, an econometric model is used to investigate the association between ESG transparency and investment efficiency under two identified scenarios, under-investment and over-investment.

Results show that audit quality and public media exposure are two main drivers of ESG transparency, hence, commitment to high-quality audits and exposure to high public media coverage drive firms to disclose more extensive and transparent ESG information. The authors also find a negative association between ESG transparency and firm-level investment inefficiency. Thus, ESG transparency generates influential incremental information that helps mitigate the information asymmetry between firms and stakeholders while fostering better resource allocation through investment efficiency.

This study contributes to the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ESG literature by identifying audit quality and public media exposure as two determinants of ESG transparency; and by noting that higher ESG transparency has a significant economic effect on capital investment decisions through higher firm-level investment efficiency.

This paper aims to examine the role that auditor’s salary perception has on audit quality and delay. The findings contribute to a greater understanding of the audit employee-level factors that influence audit work outcomes.

The authors use Big 6 employee reviews, salary data and audit and financial data from 2007 to 2017 to measure how to audit employees’ pay satisfaction affects audit quality (small profits and going concern opinions) and audit delay. The authors use a regression approach to analyze this relationship. In subsequent tests, the authors split the sample on high career opportunities to investigate how this moderates the relationship between salary perception and audit quality.

The authors document a discrepancy between pay perception and reality. It is explained, though not completely, by salary level, comparisons to peers and superiors, firm-wide attitudes, cost of living and human capital in the area, work–life balance and perceived career prospects. Surprisingly, the unexplained pay dissatisfaction relates positively to audit quality and audit efficiency (audit delay), after controlling for salary level. Further tests show that an audit employee’s expectation of career opportunities moderates this result.

This is the first paper that empirically tests the relationship between pay satisfaction and job performance in the context of audit employees in public accounting. The authors contribute to an emerging literature that investigates audit employee-level characteristics and attitudes in relation to audit quality.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the long-run relationship between geopolitical risk and exchange rates in four ASEAN countries.

We augment theoretical nominal exchange rate models available in the literature with the geopolitical risk index developed by Caldara and Iacoviello (2019), and then estimate these models using the ARDL approach to Cointegration.

Our analysis uncovers evidence of Cointegration in the exchange rate models when the MYR-USD, IDR-USD, THB-USD and PHP-USD exchange rates are used as dependent variable. Next, geopolitical risk is a significant long-run driver for these exchange rates. Third, in all countries higher geopolitical risk leads to a depreciation of domestic currency.

There are implications for entrepreneurs, central banks, portfolio managers and arbitrageurs who actively trade in financial markets. Financial market players can benefit from a better understanding of how geopolitical events affect the portfolio of financial assets across various countries, while entrepreneurs can work out hedging strategies.

This is a contribution to the study of interlinkages between political risk and foreign exchange markets. It is the first study to adopt the geopolitical risk index of Caldara and Iacoviello (2019) to the study the foreign exchange markets of ASEAN countries.

This paper aims to describe and understand the family experience of caregiving to their Alzheimer patients and to explore the impact of caregiving on the family’s caregiver well-being.

The study involved eight family caregivers from the outpatient department, specifically from the neurology-medical clinic. A descriptive phenomenological approach was used for data collection through in-depth semi-structured interviews.

Four themes emerged: caregiver perception, tension, the sense of duty and commitment and altruism and sacrifice. The experience of family caregivers was different from their experiences with other chronic illnesses.

The family caregivers experience new life when providing care to their patients with Alzheimer's. The impact of the process of caregiving on whole life appeared in both positive and negative aspects. The perception and awareness of family caregivers toward Alzheimer’s disease were poor.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of intellectual capital (IC) on the financial performance of Islamic banks operating in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

The study measures IC by the value added intellectual coefficient model. A regression analysis was used to assess the impact of IC on financial performance. The research sample consisted of Islamic banks operating in the GCC countries during the years 2011, 2012 and 2013. Data originated from the annual reports of Islamic banks.

The results support the thesis that IC has a positive impact on the financial performance of Islamic banks. Even though the average IC is lower than that reported in other studies, the positive effect on financial performance is obvious. The findings also show that human capital (HC) is higher than capital employed (CE) and structural capital (SC). The study reveals that SC has an insignificant impact on the financial performance of the Islamic banks compared to CE and HC.

The findings provide empirical evidence that IC affects the Islamic banks’ financial performance. It helps Islamic banks in the GCC countries to understand how to use their IC efficiently, especially SC as it is yet to be used efficiently. Also, the findings benefit the relevant authorities (e.g. legislators and central banks) who could use them to emphasise strategic policy reforms whenever required.

The current research adds to the empirical studies in the GCC countries as it views the region as a collective as opposed to individual countries. It also extends the IC and performance measurement literature of Islamic banks in the GCC countries. Moreover, the current study enriches the limited literature on IC in the context of Islamic banking.

This chapter elaborates on entrepreneurship in developed and developing countries and focuses on the optimization of entrepreneurial activities. Various scenarios are considered: independent functioning of the market, integration in the form of reorganization (mergers and acquisitions), integration in the form of clustering, and integration in the form of innovational networks and technological parks. The optimal structure of the integration processes and best-case scenarios for its implementation to accelerate the rate and increase the quality of economic growth are substantiated. The potential for uptake of integration processes in stimulating economic growth through entrepreneurship is determined by the level of institutionalization in an economy. In developed countries, all forms of company integration are characterized by the high level of institutionalization, which allows for their effective use for economic growth. Independent companies, mergers, and acquisitions restrain economic growth and reduce its quality, while clusters, technological parks, and innovational networks accelerate the rate of economic growth and increase its quality. In developing countries, integration processes in entrepreneurship have a different influence on economic growth and require further institutionalization.

This study attempts to find out the impact of the human behavioral factors (HBFs) including emotion, factors of deals with processes within and between groups as well as with the impact of these processes on individuals’ attitudes and moods, personality, beliefs and values, perception and motivation on the knowledge management system–cycles (KMS-Cs) which comprises sharing; it considers findings from social psychology and discusses their applicability in knowledge management (KM) research and practice; social psychological concepts that strongly influence knowledge processes in organizations are first introduced. It is creating, storing and transferring of academic staff while analyzing the certificates on the acquired behaviors and knowledge which were involved in each of the communications, decision-making, creating new ideas, providing new knowledge, idea diversity, progressing, enhancing and improving the organization, using up-to-date technology and proactivity between the independent and dependent variables. In order to test the study hypotheses, data of 219 respondents working at the University of Sulaimani were collected. The results of the study revealed the academic staff psychology effect on KMS-Cs with a substantial relationship between the HBFs and cycles of KM during academic and administrative work. Also, it surged their academic staff efficiency through a conceptual model called KM behavior (KMB); knowledge management systems (KMSs) are applications of the organization's communication and information systems (CISs) designed to support the various KM processes. They are generally not technologically distinct from the CISs but rely on databases, such as those designed to put organizational participants in contact with recognized experts in a variety of topic areas (Yakan, 2008; Al Hayani, 2020). Information technology (IT) used in KM is known as KMS. In general, KMSs are computer systems that enable organizations to manage knowledge that is efficient and cost-effective. KMS is a class of information systems applied to the management of organizational knowledge. KMS is a system that increases organizational performance by enabling employees to make better decisions when applying their knowledge as part of their daily business activities.

Research hypotheses Ho: HBFs and KMS-Cs are not correlated. H1: HBFs have no impact on KMS-Cs. H2: certificates have no effect on HBFs and KMS-Cs. Data collection and sample demographics: in this study, the relevant information for assessing the HBFs and their impact on the KMS-Cs was gathered through a questionnaire survey. The HBF was measured using the following items: emotions, attitudes and moods, personality, beliefs and values, perception and motivation. The knowledge management cycle (KMC) was measured using the following items: knowledge sharing, knowledge creation, knowledge storing and knowledge transfer. The total number of employees at the University of Sulaimani, Sulaimaniya, at the time of data collection (May, 2019) was 117. Since the information available on the number of academic staff at the University of Sulaimani is according to the departments, this study employed a proportionate stratified random sampling method to select the number of academic staff from colleges and departments at the University of Sulaimani. The total number of academic staff at the University of Sulaimaniis is 1,740. Therefore, the appropriate sample size for this study is at least 5% of the population (i.e. 90 respondents) (Langham, 1999). The questionnaire was administered personally through Google Form where questionnaires were collected from the respondents. Examination of the response rate shows that the response rate for this study is excellent. The research instrument consists of two main sections. The first section incorporates a nominal scale to identify respondents' demographic information. The second section uses the five-point Likert-type scale from fully disagree (1) to fully agree (5). All of the measurement items went through backward translation (translated from English into Korean and back into English) to ensure consistency and to resolve discrepancies between the two versions of the instrument (Mullen, 1995; Aldiabat et al., 2018). The participants were almost equal in terms of gender, 59 were males and 58 were females. The certificate for each one of the PhD, MSc and BSc was 39 participants. The number of participants whose age was between 23 and 32 years was 26, between 33 and 42 years was 50, between 43 and 52 years was 29, between 53 and 62 years was 10 and above 62 years was 2. Validity and reliability: in addition to the steps mentioned earlier to assess the validity and reliability of the study tools, a further test was executed. The reliability to measure many inner variables in regularity, Cronbach’s alpha is generally utilized in order to evaluate it and the value should exceed 0.70 for each variable (Alharbi, and Drew, 2014) (Table 1). Cronbach's alpha regards to the test of reliability of a skill for each of the HBF and KMC.

The study is considered the organizations relationship between HBFs and KMS-Cs and the influence of the factors on the cycles. So, the new ideas emerge to create knowledge about product development among employees. The group experience works as an essential element (Grimsdottir and Edvardsson, 2018). Knowledge resides in human minds and, as a result, employee behavior and explanatory skills are the key drivers of KM (Prieto and Revilla, 2005). First, knowledge creation, sharing and storing is increased when the organization has motivated the employees. Second, knowledge is shared rapidly when the employees have owned a strong personality, new idea, impression and perception. Third, both the beliefs and values lead to creating new knowledge when the employees obtained it inside the organization. Then, the emotion factors illustrated the weak relation with knowledge sharing, knowledge creation, knowledge storing and knowledge transfer.

Knowledge is considered as a great factor in achieving organizational goals (Hammami and Alkhaldi, 2017). Therefore, this study has explained that knowledge is an essential element for employees and organizations. Furthermore, it progresses the skills and capabilities during the job. Nevertheless, this knowledge is impacted through human behaviors because the behavior evolves crucial factors that help the academic staff to create, share, store and transfer the knowledge through motivation, perception, personality, attitudes, moods, beliefs and values. Knowledge sharing is a culture of social interaction involving the exchange of knowledge, experiences and skills of employees across the organization (Zugang et al., 2018). Organizations need to pay particular attention to the method of communication used where knowledge becomes useless if employees are not encouraged to study and use it in their daily activities (Boatca et al., 2018). Knowledge sharing can be achieved by taking into account technical standards (KMS), social standards (environment) and personality (motivation) (Özlen, 2017).

This corpus-based study provides a descriptive account of the distribution of the polysemous noun nafs in two Arabic varieties, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Classical Arabic (CA). The research objective is to survey the use of nafs as a reflexive marker in local binding domains and as a self-intensifier in NP-adjoined positions.

The consulted corpora are Timespamped JSI Web corpus for MSA and Quran corpus for CA. While attending to corpora size differences, MSA and CA exhibit a pattern of difference and similarity in nafs diffusion.

In the modern variety, nafs is pervasively used as reflexive marker in canonical binding domains, along with a less frequent, yet notable, intensifier user, and these uses are partially and cautiously attributed to the specific genre in which they occur. In CA, nafs is mainly recurrent as a polysemous noun, along with extensive use as a reflexive marker in local binding settings. As an intensifier, nafs is totally non-existent in the CA corpus, in the same way as it is in absentia in VP-constituent extraction in MSA.

Examining whether nafs, as a reflexive marker, deviates from canonical binding in Arabic the way English reflexive pronouns do. Building a general account of this distribution is relevant in understanding the explicit (syntactic) and implicit (discourse-based) dimensions of reflexive marker and self-intensifier processing and interpretation in Arabic as a first and second language.